The style of narration is extremely unique because she switches from first-person to third-person and later on in the novel the narrator also alternates to second-person because of the involvement of more minor characters as the plot develops. Speaking of the plot, it doesn't flow in a linear motion with chronological events but it's more of an interweaving plot where the narrator would bring up one event and then proceed to the future or sometimes go back to the past and then recalls that one event back again later on in the novel. Juliana had mentioned in our recent class discussions on the novel that it represents the fluctuation of events, representing the undulating motion of different bodies of water which the narrator frequently makes reference to.
In my opinion, the undulating and interweaving motion of the plot also represents the process of the narrator's memory recall. In the beginning of the novel, she emphasized the image of the Mekong River and I feel like the whole plot eventually unfolds around the Mekong River because that was the most significant part of the narrator's life. The narrator met her Chinese lover at that river and also describes her emotional departure from the Chinese man which he described as "a betrayal". At the same time, it's also worth noting that numerous minor characters were mentioned in random scenes of the novel and I think they all contributed to the overall theme of madness and tragedy in dynamic love relationships. Overall, the novel definitely gave me an impression of "M-A-D-N-E-S-S" in bold letters.
I definitely agree that The Lover wasn't a romance novel. While there was romance in it, much of it was more focused on the idea of l'amour fou, desire or pleasure. We didn't really get a sense that the narrator loved the Chinese man as a person who she could have a happy life with. They had a very turbulent relationship and I think that may have been emphasized by the "undulating and interweaving motion of the plot". Not only did we get scenes of their weeping while making love, they were also intercut with scenes of the narrator's conflict with her family or desire for Helene Lagonelle. The mood would sometimes be carried on so everything would seem rather depressing. The random scenes of Marie-Claude Carpenter and the other girl were very random. All I could take from it was, like what you said, that it was just something that Duras wanted to tell the readers about because the scenes were part of her life.
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