Abstract
This chapter considers how the use of proper names disrupts the experience of time in Cécile Wajsbrot’s Mémorial (2007) and in La Compagnie des spectres [The Company of Ghosts] (1997) and its companion text Quelques conseils utiles aux élèves huissiers [“Some Useful Advice for Apprentice Process-Servers”] (1997) by Lydie Salvayre. It shows how reading someone’s name or the name of a significant place can bring together past and present, particularly in the context of loss and mourning. It first examines the obsession with the names Darnand and Pétain in Salvayre’s works. Then, it traces how in Mémorial certain names that have become synonymous with catastrophe and disaster (Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Alzheimer) can be transmitted in spite of their silencing.
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