Style
Part 1, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis:

The style of the novel is linguistically complex and filled with literary allusions, reflecting Humbert Humbert’s own background as a professor of literature. Humbert’s narration in Chapter 1, in which he reflects upon a girl whom he loved when he was a young boy (Lolita’s “precursor”), reflects the ornate style of the novel: 

Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.