Raw Meat

Have you read Zadie Smith's White Teeth?

It's her debut novel. *Published* when she was twenty-five. God knows how old (young) she was when she wrote it.

White Teeth is so wonderfully written-- the style is beautiful and clear, the characters unique but recognizable, the world fleshed out and fascinating.

What the fuck?

Of course this makes me want to blast all my own writing into oblivion.

Of course, this makes me want to inhale the whole book in one sitting.

Of course, this makes me consider giving up writing forever.

The stranger thing, though:

I've read her third book (she's written three so far), On Beauty, and wasn't all that impressed. Yeah, it was well written, but it wasn't anywhere near as special as White Teeth (it often felt downright pedantic). And the critics didn't exactly slobber all over her second novel, The Autograph Man (which she could only write after a period of writer's block).

Her writing is so *SO* chock full of talent and skill in White Teeth, it shocks me that she *could* even misstep, or let her writing crust over in the way it has.

This just goes to show: raw instinct is just one tool in the writer's arsenal, but it's an essential tool. Humanity is essential to good writing.