What is the author's style in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne?

Sterne wrote The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy in 18th-century English. Consequently, the book is occasionally difficult to understand—such words as betwixt, for example, are rarely used in contemporary English. However to take away such language would lose the book its meaning, simply because the novel is truly unique for its time. Its thoroughly-modern narrative experiments, later picked up by the likes of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, make it an exciting and refreshing period piece.