Barbara,

I'm pretty closely aware of compilation cuts and montages from work that I've done. I think that what Sandy and I are looking for is a literary term, or perhaps a completely new term, that would describe how Nabokov has presented, in Lolita, a picture of the U.S. that is as minute and detailed as a mosaic, and yet so alive.  I don't have time now to go through the correspondence on this, but I believe we were looking for a descriptive term for something that characterizes VN's writing. The fact that Humbert's tone and style lives within and guides this technique is part of what I think moves it away from becoming a compilation or montage. In my view, that is.

Thanks

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From:   Vladimir Nabokov Forum on behalf of Donald B. Johnson
Reply To:       Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent:   Thursday, April 28, 2005 7:17 AM
To:     NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject:        Fw: Humbert's pedophilia on film

<<File: ATT448036.htm>>
EDNOTE. Barbara Wyllie is the author of a recent book on Nabokov and film.

----- Forwarded message from bwyllie@ssees.ac.uk -----
    Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 10:41:00 +0100
    From: Barbara Wyllie <bwyllie@ssees.ac.uk>
Reply-To: Barbara Wyllie <bwyllie@ssees.ac.uk>
 Subject: Re:      Re: Fw: Humbert's pedophilia on film
      To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum

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

----- End forwarded message -----