In presenting his "counterlives," Roth uses a variety of traditional techniques, such as flashbacks, interior monologues, dramatic skits, and comic juxtapositions of events; but the novel's form as well as its theme is fresh and original. As the novel repeatedly doubles back on itself, the reader is compelled to reconsider characters and events in different contexts. This is the point of The Counterlife: to consider different ideas of a person's fate. In his alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, Roth presents different or opposing ideas of his fate as a novelist. Despite these twists and counterturns, the novel is not difficult to follow once the reader grasps its basic technique.