TODAY, more women are writing columns than before. But as the women’s movement took hold, traditional limitations on them began to dissolve, and they’re now writing about politics, government, finance, health or international affairs; in addition to family matters and personal concerns. They’ve stretched the boundaries of the form by creating columns that combine personal and political issues — each one different in background, voice, style and subject matter, free to express their opinions in writing.
What distinguishes it is the distinctive way of seeing the social landscape, an ability to see what everybody sees, but not quite the way that everybody sees it.
Unlike the novelist, poet or playwright, columnists do not perform in the center ring, and must be content in their self-imposed role of second class citizens in the world of literati. A columnist is licensed to be cheeky by drawing so many strands of inconsistencies in human behavior, and gets away with a fair amount of authority.
It is its personal intimacy, a chatter with pen in hand, in an urban conversational manner. The writer seems to speak directly into your ear — confiding everything from wisdom to gossip in the usual see saw of modesty and egotism. Universality and touching eccentricity comes as it deals lightly and harmoniously (even struggling for honesty) with personal experiences, opinions, prejudices; all having to do with the varied aspects of life.
Others say column writing is the most profound work of the intellect in the face of life, in spite of: it is notoriously flexible and adaptable. For prose to move anywhere, in all the directions, it is open to digression and the promiscuousness of the mind.
It is fragmentary and random as a writer gives you her spontaneous thoughts and lets you know, in addition, how she gets to the point. Through the seashell soul of intimacy, candor and irony, taking a stand on just about everything, from tragedies to comedies (which cuts a man down to his size) even rich speculations about a man’s sexuality, morals or lack of it — drawing out parts through similes, metaphors and hyperboles. It wants to discuss, as it says what the issue is and then stops when it feels itself complete, not when nothing is left to see.
What joy indeed it is to write without playing the pedantic school master, void of all learning crammed out of books. You can take a stand on just about everything from political, to cultural, to personal life in a blend of reportage, getting away with what borders on autobiographical. You’d want to strangle that columnist who does his craft with glee.
Column writing represents a mode of living. It parts a way for the self to function with relative freshness in this uncertain world. It doesn’t make excessive claims nor compulsive sprinkling citations to get a free ride or other men’s brain.
In a field where objectivity is akin to the Holy Grail, newspaper columnists are free to express opinion. Unfettered by the need to be objective or fair, columnists can be scathing in their criticism, unabashed in their praise funny or poignant, arrogant or intensely personal.
According to Virginia Woolfe, all columns are addressed to the common reader she has defined as “that somewhat fussy figure who may or may not exist but has been solicited and inviled to partake.”
And now gentle readers,I going to figure out how to give an old saw a new twist as I cobble a column..
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E-mail Mylah at [email protected]
