A reflexive response to The Lover by Marguerite Duras

I have never read a book with this unusual style of writing that Marguerite Duras uses in The Lover. It made the book confusing, frustrating, and interesting all at the same time. There isn't just one passage that I found difficult. It was the whole story that left me asking questions. Why did Duras write this book? Why didn't she write it in chronolgical order? What was the significance of the affair with her older Chinese lover?
It's as if she wrote this novel as a way to study herself and to bring her inner pain to the surface. Pain is the one word that I really felt Duras describing throughout most of the story. Her father is dead. She was physically and emotionally abused by her mother and older brother. Her younger brother, whom she seemed to have loved deeply, died. She sums up her cold family life well on page 54 where she says, "Everything always silent, distant. It's a family of stone, petrified so deeply it's impenetrable. Everyday we try to kill one anothe...