The kind of scenes you describe in the book could be likened to a series of what in film are called 'compilation cuts' - a sequence made up of a number of rapidly changing and not necessarily related scenes/images which together create a distinct and vital impression of a place or the sense of passing time.
 
Montage would also be an appropriate term. In Webster: 1 : the production of a rapid succession of images in a motion picture to illustrate an association of ideas; 2 a : a literary, musical, or artistic composite of juxtaposed more or less heterogeneous elements.
 
Barbara Wyllie
SSEES/UCL
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Donald B. Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: 28 April, 2005 12:47 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: Humbert's pedophilia on film

Andrew and List

        1. You are correct.  The word "panorama", as generally used, suggests
a continous, perhaps superficial and generalized, view quite contrary
to Nabokov's methodic details.   There must be a better word for the
multiple, detailed, trans-American scenes. [Perhaps I was influenced by
an older meaning of the word. In my Webster's International 2nd
Edition:   "3. ....; a mental image of a series of images or events,
etc