The Gimlet Eye

A COUPLE of winters ago I moved my family from the city to the suburbs, and one thing I didn’t expect from them (the suburbs, I mean) was the smell of manure. It is ubiquitous at this time of year, omnipresent, suffusive, like the ether. Of course there are delights in suburban living at springtime: the green traces of trees, the shafts of sunlight passing through the dogwood, the frolic of furry animals and the chirping of flighty birds. You know. The innocent laughter of children at play. And everywhere the stench of the barnyard.

A less dyspeptic, or perhaps a more peptic, suburbanite than I would breathe deep of the aroma and sense in it the fecundity of the earth, the eternal cycle of death and rebirth, the whole load of hogwash from The Lion King. What I smell, however, is the stink of human competition. Life in the suburbs, seen clearly, is an eternal cycle of oneupsmanship. It is a bloodless contest played out on the lawns and in the flower beds. Early of a Saturday morning another round begins. The homeowners emerge from their front doors to survey the length of the street. The questions are cruel, pitiless. Whose lawn shimmers most luminously? Whose azaleas explode most spectacularly? Whose beds of shrubbery heave and swell with the most aromatic fertilizer? The grass, goes the saying, is always greener on the other side of the fence. In real life, this is a toothless cliché. In the suburbs it is an accusation, an expression of contempt.

About the Author

Andrew Ferguson

Andrew Ferguson, a former columnist for NR, is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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A COUPLE of winters ago I moved my family from the city to the suburbs, and one thing I didn’t expect from them (the suburbs, I mean) was the smell of manure. It is ubiquitous at this time of year, omnipresent, suffusive, like the ether. Of course there are delights in suburban living at springtime: the green traces of trees, the shafts of sunlight passing through the dogwood, the frolic of furry animals and the chirping of flighty birds. You know. The innocent laughter of children at play. And everywhere the stench of the barnyard.

A less dyspeptic, or perhaps a more peptic, suburbanite than I would breathe deep of the aroma and sense in it the fecundity of the earth, the eternal cycle of death and rebirth, the whole load of hogwash from The Lion King. What I smell, however, is the stink of human competition. Life in the suburbs, seen clearly, is an eternal cycle of oneupsmanship. It is a bloodless contest played out on the lawns and in the flower beds. Early of a Saturday morning another round begins. The homeowners emerge from their front doors to survey the length of the street. The questions are cruel, pitiless. Whose lawn shimmers most luminously? Whose azaleas explode most spectacularly? Whose beds of shrubbery heave and swell with the most aromatic fertilizer? The grass, goes the saying, is always greener on the other side of the fence. In real life, this is a toothless cliché. In the suburbs it is an accusation, an expression of contempt.