Memory Matter: Jesús Moncada's Phenomenology of Eidetic Recollection

Critics often view Jesús Moncada's novels, particularly Camí de sirga and Estremida memòria as archives of collective memory meant to resuscitate the author's native village of Mequinensa, which was leveled in 1971 due to the construction of the Riba-roja dam on the Ebro River. With a particular focus on Camí de sirga, I consider Moncada's treatment of memory from a phenomenological perspective that regards physical objects rooted in a particular geographical locus as important containers of mnemonic traces. My position, therefore, complicates popular theories of memory by arguing that subjective recollective experience is ineluctably altered once an external object is disconnected from its historical referents. I additionally place shifting views on localism and the conversion of speed into an ontology as important antecedents to Moncada's conception of memory within the text, thereby analyzing the relationship between socioeconomic context and diegetic thematization.