One goal that many authors share is to keep their readers engaged in their writing. A strategy that authors use to keep readers engaged is to invoke remembrance from the reader. Authors have different ways of doing this. Jonathan Safran Foer and Jhumpa Lahiri invoke remembrance from their readers by writing about events that many readers have experienced.

In his novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer writes about a boy named Oskar who was deeply affected by the events of September 11, 2001. After the September 11 terrorist attacks, Oskar had “an extremely difficult time doing certain things like… getting into elevators” (Foer, 36). Many people share Oskar’s fear. After the terrorist attacks, people were scared to fly in airplanes and go in the subway. When those people read about Oskar’s fear, they remember their own reactions to the terrorist attacks and how they affected them. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close made readers remember the horrific events of September 11 and what happened after.

In her novel The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri writes about an Indian family that has moved to the United States and how it adapts to the new culture. At one point in the novel, Lahiri writes about a vacation that Gogol goes on with his girlfriend. During this vacation, Gogol “sits with Maxine’s famly on a thin strip of beach… applying sunblock at intervals to his arms, reading” (Lahiri, 153). Many people go on vacation with their family to relax. Reading about Gogol’s vacation evokes memories many people have of their own vacations. Reading The Namesake evokes memories people have of living their life in America.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and The Namesake both deal with events that many people have experienced. In Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the event is September 11, 2001 while in Namesake the event is growing up and living life. Reading about these events evokes memories that the reader has had related to these events.