In “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” author John Safran Foer invokes remembrance with many devices. First, he intertwines pieces of letters that Oscar’s grandfather wrote to his father and that Oscar’s grandmother wrote to himself in between the main plot. This gives the story a nostalgic feeling overall as pieces of the letters reveal Oscar’s grandparents’ past and how does it affect every member in the family. Moreover, the author scatters pictures throughout the book that relate to past events including Oscar’s grandfather’s doorknob, his hands with the yes and no on it, and pictures of a falling man on 9/11. He brings out remembrance in these pictures and constantly reminds the readers of how memory in the book affects one’s past, present, and future. On the other hand, Jhumpa Lahiri in “The namesake” conjures up remembrance with other approaches. The first to be pointed out is how the story is narrated in chronological order, from the beginning of Ashoke’s train accident, to Ashima’s marriage to Ashoke, then to how they started in Boston, up until they gave birth to Gogol and Sonita, and then how they too grew up, went to college, and lived life of their own, and so on. Jhumpa invokes remembrance by making the whole life story of the Ganguli go by so fast, that we as readers think back to the beginning and how long has it been since it happened; this effect by turn generates a feeling of bittersweet reminiscence. What makes Jhumpa’s approach to remembrance special is how she makes the whole story revolves around the namesake of Gogol Ganguli, thus the title “the namesake.” Each time Gogol has a struggle between his pet name and his good name with his parents, friends, or even between himself rouses the reader back to the origin of his name, to the train accident that almost killed Ashoke, and to the Russian poet Nikhil Gogol that had inspired Ashoke from the beginning in Calcutta. In conclusion, both novels, although using different methods and devices, trigger in the readers a sense of the past and of reminiscence, a theme which our class will be concentrated on this semester.