I have just started reading Lolita and really need a guide to Nabokov the stylist. I've always enjoyed a good story (like, say, Sherlock Holmes) and a novel of ideas (like 1984 or Brave New World), but I'm woefully ignorant of the great prose stylists, like Joyce, Nabokov and Woolf. I want to make an effort to understand why the prose of a writer like Nabokov is so admired. Can anyone help (examples would be appreciated). What is it about Nabokov's use of language that so enthralls the critics that a novel about a paedophile is held to be one of the masterpieces of 20th century literature?