"The Counterfeiters" is a novel-within-a-novel, with Edouard (the alter ego of Gide) intending to write a book of the same title. Other stylistic devices are also used, such as an omniscient narrator who sometimes addresses the reader directly, weighs in on the characters' motivations or discusses alternate realities. Therefore, the book has been seen as a precursor of the "nouveau roman". The structure of the novel was written to mirror "Cubism," in that it interweaves between several different plots and portrays multiple points of view.