It's Time: Writing on the Wall - Softcover

Kostin, Pavel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1907832181 ISBN 13: 9781907832185

Publisher: Urban Romantics, 2012

Synopsis

This is a book about all the magical new things that you can discover if you’re brave enough to break out of your boring routine and take a fresh look at the world around you. But this is also a story about love. Passionate, selfless love. That may seem ridiculously naive in today’s world... So be it. It’s a book about how, whatever trials life may have in store for you, if at heart you are a romantic, if you know how to love, then everything will work out.

From up on the roof, you can see everything. You can see life scurrying below you, and see it with a calm objectivity. No prejudices, no assumptions. That's what Max, the compelling narrator does: even when he is not sitting on a rooftop, he looks at life with intelligent curiosity, amiable openness and good-humoured equanimity. Max is not only a great companion for the reader - a calm presence at the centre of events - but the perfect lens through which to see a hidden world.

Through Max we meet a succession of intriguing characters-artists and dreamers with their own unique perspectives on life and formulas for happiness: Viktor, the photographer who finds beauty in the mundane; inscrutable Tanya, whose mystery attracts Max as much as her smile; Pyos, an artist who lost ability to see people around him and lives in a disappearing tower; Oksana, forever entangled in spontaneous and dangerous affairs; Gray, connoisseur of street-art and magic. And, at the centre of it all, the enigmatic Lady F, who appears out of nowhere to give Max little bits of comfort and advice. Her clairvoyant yet cryptic intimations lead Max, and us, through a procession of coincidences, adventures, and miraculous escapes. Who is she? Guardian angel, Lady Luck, hallucination? Whoever she is, her wry and wise interchanges with Max are one of the novel's real pleasures. Whispers of magic get louder and louder, but, thanks to Kostin's clear and sober prose, with its amused detachment and adroit lyrical touches, we never stray into the world of fantasy or stock-in-trade magic realism.

Selected Quotes

"Everything is unique, every moment in the Universe exists in one copy only and cannot be repeated."

"You can be an artist even if you’ve never finished a single painting in your whole life."

"Sometimes I feel that there is such a thing as happiness. It exists somewhere. It’s waiting, burning red like coal, shining in the sky."

"Art must no longer inhabit only the storerooms and sheds of human genius—the palaces, galleries, salons, libraries and theatres. On behalf of the great advance of cultural equality for all, we demand that the Free Word of the creative individual be written on the intersections of walls, on the fences, roofs and streets of our cities and villages."

About this title

About the Author

About The Author

Pavel Kostin is a contemporary romantic writer with passion for magical and mystical side of life. His heroes are mysterious, often secretive, unusual and yet ordinary young people who want to understand the world around them. They are often artists and romantics at heart, and this unites them in their eternal search for truth, freedom, love and friendship.

About The Translator

James Rann is an award winning young British literary translator and linguistics specialist, an Oxford graduate with first class in classics and distinction in Russian. James lived and studied in Russia where he polished his knowledge of modern Russian and shaped up his unique understanding of both classical tradition of European literature and modern approach and literary innovation of Pushkin, Lermontov and Mayakovskiy. Poetry bloggers describe James as The Sunshine of Russian

Pavel Kostin About His Novel

IT'S TIME is a book which has been written by the city. Not me. Not a man. The book appeared on the walls of the city itself, has grown along with structures and buildings over time. So I can say that the novel is written on the walls of my city. This relates directly to the plot ... but I am not going to spoil the fun for you here, I will just say that the secret is hidden in the urban art, street art, and my book about this partly.

There are many mysteries there, but what is mysticism? Who can reveal, where it ends and begins? Is magic real? I believe that magic exists and always existed, that it is present in each of us, lives in every moment of our lives, and it is is hidden from everyday sight, and only occasionally, sometimes, for one sparkling moment - she shows us her radiant self. I believe everyone experienced those moments at some point in their life. Do you remember one of your magic moments? My book is about this.

The city is inhabited by different people. Strange and funny. Ordinary and extraordinary. By those who make you want to yawn with boredom, and those that capture your imagination. People who cannot imagine how to break free from comfortable, warm and unbearably dull routine, and people who cannot imagine a day in it. People who repeat only what has been taught to them, and people who are always doing something new and want to build for themselves another life. Ordinary people and ... not so ordinary. Where would you place yourself? My book is about this, too.

The city has a surface and a bottom. The city has a day and a night. Bright day, tense, full of dust and bustle; night - dark and mysterious, full of beauty and charm. Day comes with work, rush and routine it is time for business people. Nigh brings opportunities for creation and the unknown it is time to discover the unknown, time for artists and explorers. But beware, the seeker! At the depths of the night, there at the bottom, unchartered waters await with surprises and danger. Is it worth risking the dusty bustle of the day for the sake of coolness and beauty of the night? What would you personally choose? Predictability and comfort of routine or dangers of discovering the unknown? My book is about this.

There is noise and there is peace in the city. A continuous struggle and the romantic beauty, there is boredom and there is magic in the city. It's a place to escape and a place where danger awaits. There is endless traffic and eternal peace. There are enemies and friends there. The city is you and there is street art in the city. That's what my book is all about.

Review

"This whole novel is about bursting out against a role, against the expectations laid out for us and against surroundings we've grown too comfortable in. Much of the book is a succession of impressions, of ruminations on life, on art, on reality, on our surroundings. The protagonist, Max, is reminiscent of a Fitzgerald type narrator, pulled in every which way and wandering through the conflict of the story. I was deeply impressed by the mood that surrounds it, the simple language combined with deep meaning, the motifs of friendship, love, everyday magic, and probably one of the biggest things that of the consequences of adulthood, of finding oneself." -- Natalie Meyer, California, USA

"This book is about the new generation of young people, about new ideas, about the fact that everything is possible if one has faith. Very emotional, soulful, and sincere. I read it in one go. The ending both shocked and inspired, made me want to live and explore life. The book's spirituality reminds me of Haruki Murakami but I disagree with the final choice of the lead character." -- Yevgeni Topunov, Cambridge, UK

"At first I thought Pavel Kostin's 'It's Time' was going to be a twenty-first-century Catcher in the Rye set in Russia, but then it sets off into the summer sunset of the naval port's docklands. I like the way Kostin's main character stays positive against a backdrop of decaying industrial sprawl - I don't know why this strikes me as a non-commercial version of 80's punk, but it does just that and I thought it very refreshing." -- Andrew Whitmore, UK

"A beautifully, lyrically crafted novel. If one could combine the contradictory ideas of a soul's torments and the joy of life in one book this would be the book. Coming from a young author, it was so refreshing to discover no cynicism or crude language. It was a joy to read. You felt extraordinary compassion for the protagonist in his tormented quest, you rejoiced in his optimism, you were bound to feel what he felt. Just look at his description of waves coming to shore: 'The ubiquitous arrival of waves, one after another. It's so calming, if you look at it. But the point is not this subtle murmur of waves. It's the fact that after this wave there will be another, and then another. And so forever. It never fails to calm me. Forever. Do my problems even have a meaning compared to this word...' But don't get me wrong it's not just a descriptive novel of rumination: there is a plot here skilfully designed and not resolved until the very end." -- Irene Rudra, Texas, USA

"I love this book because, although it is the story of certain unusual individuals living unusual lives, it illuminates all the existence of all of us. Thanks to Kostin's gift for characterisation, we really believe the conversations and musings of this cast of outsiders. They, like Pavel, and like me, are fascinated by the city, and the way we all interact with it. Kostin hymns the urban landscape and the young people that refuse to just exist in it, but live in it, by it, and through it. We see them, and their lives, and their art (which accompanies the text) and we see the way their art elevates their lives. From up on the rooftop, we can see everything, and it is beautiful." -- James Rann, The Translator --urban-romantics.com

Edition details

• Publisher: Urban Romantics
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1907832181
• ISBN 13: 9781907832185
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 260
• Editor: Bollinger Max