VN's "ironic style" offers maximum flexibility. Most non-ironic writers would try to be more consistent. 1. VN's style is paratactic: he varies long sentences with short sentences, or course, but altogether they are usually arranged paractically. This emphasizes his detachment. He never or almost never uses cumulative writing, because this would carry on too long to allow the narrator to make his presence known. 2. VN uses a crazy salad of words from different vocabularies: you could say he uses words from the following vocabulary sets: colloquial, sentimental, intellectual, clinical, slang, archaic, quoted and allusive material (there's a lot), French. 3. VN moves from intensity to detachment. The intensity is not in cumulative or running style; his style always feels controlled, not spontaneous like running style. It is from hyperbole, the unrestrained use of strings of adjectives or verbs. 4. VN often uses a staccato rhythm. "Lo. Lee. Ta." This could be described as a paratactic rhythm, because it places words next to each other the way parataxis places sentences alongside each other. 5. VN shifts modes of address: I mean, sometimes he's speaking to an imaginary jury, sometimes directly to the reader, sometimes to a general audience, sometimes just composing on the page. 6. VN uses unusual subject-verb choice to create metaphorical effects: everyone does this: "I could eat him up with a spoon"; "she floated towards me"; "the class was a yawn" - these are all metaphors. But VN's are more pointed and unusual. When Humbert is trying to remember the name of the taxi driver who stole his first wife, he initially refers to him, an East European, as Taxovich. Then he remembers his name: "Maximovich! His name taxied to me!" 7. VN constantly displays an awareness of the sound of words: like Joyce, he loved puns and his constant wordplay adds to the general sense of playfulness and detachment. I guess this subject is worthy of a book, so that's enough for now.
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