Words. Words are the key of the great literature. Words are in fact, the thing which makes art, however you look upon it. And there is no artistic masterpiece without words (at least when it comes down to literature).
This novel is almost completely written in dialogue. It's the dialogue between Gabriel and Rex, Gabriel and his mother, and Gabriel and every other character in book. But, there is nothing in this book beside that dialogue.
It's an endless parade of talking, words without emotion in them, whithout and sense of fear, exasperation, passion, just plain old worlds, full of clichés, which are supposed to make a statement about the outside world, and about the mothern ways of living in contradictio with old (60's, 70's) way of live. They try to be critique of media, of famous people, and poshy ladies in rich outfits. But they are not.
This kind of story was told many times before, each period has it's own, "manifesto" so to say, and many times it was better said by the authors who had more talent than Kureishi.
When I completed this book, I felt nothing. Just emptiness, which cannot fill the void inside of me that need to be fed...wiih words.
This book represent in what has realism in literature evolved during the 90's, and whatever is that called now, the fact stays: It wasn't succesful evolutionary proces.
I give this book 2 stars only for the idealistic traces of dark romantism of a lost child in a big town full of bad people. And only for that...

Since the mid-80s when Kureishi started to write I have been a close follower of his fiction work and screenplays. His main characters in his books whether in the Black Album, The Buddha of Suburbia and My Beautiful Laundrette are always at the crossroads. His characters live and mostly survive in a world accentuated by racial and sexual politics and loss and rediscovery of identity. Gabriel's Gift is a milestone in this career, more subtle in humour, more introspective yet lives up to an author's fame as a writer who knows how to use language.Gabriel's relationship with his Dad and his description of people who are lost in the meanders of the post-60s world is touching and powerful. Especially the first chapter of the book should be a standard text in literature and writing classes.

Society is still as dark and deceptive as ever but Gabriel, Kureishi's most recent teenage protagonist, has the gift to dispel its gloom. Gabriel's ill-suited parents have finally separated, he is bored, left to his own devices and well on his way to becoming a drug addict. But, instead of following all the easy paths to becoming a failure, he decides to take his parents' problems into his own hands. Although the story is unrealistically idealistic, it carries with it an unmistakable aura of hope, in the modern shape of fame. Fame is the gift and the fairy that can deliver anybody in style from all the difficulties of twentieth-first-century living. Once more Kureishi injects his characteristic comedy and light-heartedness into a serious subject without too much irreverence and with a little more hope. As a modern fairy-tale, 'Gabriel's Gift' is able to offer a nice dream with just enough kick in the backside to keep it real.

Kureishi aims at writing a story in which the characters confuse each other with sexual desire and also, most importantly, the true nature of love. And, honestly speaking, it is quite a hard plot to deal with, especially in drama. Owing to the limitation on not writing everything explicitly in words, the story depends on dialogues to tell the readers the chaotic romance within the story. The book I have read so far, which can successfully deal with such a difficult plot is however, a gay novel - Larry Kramer's Faggots. Sleep with me has a potentially good and intriguing plot; however, there are not enough actions to dramatise the chaos. In other words, the chaos are not chaotic enough. The story is there. It happens by itself. It fails to pull the readers into the core of the drama. Finally, when you close the book, you will realise that something has happened, but nothing's changed.