Not only did Kafka create a new language to describe the world, he also invented a new punctuation: he put question marks where there had never been any before. “Why” is the word that keeps emerging from Josef K’s mouth throughout his long trial. And the same is true for K the land surveyor during his numerous interrogations, for Gregor Samsa after his transformation, and for Karl Rossmann as he travels through America. Kafka’s characters do not expect any recompense for their misadventures, only an explanation for what is happening to them. And to each “why,” they are all given the same response: such a question has no answer here. Levi made the same observation at Auschwitz when a guard brutally snatched away an icicle that he was using to quench his thirst. When Levi asked “Warum?” the guard replied: “Hier ist kein Warum”—”there is no why here.” There were no explanations in a concentration camp. And yet Levi kept asking the question, at least to himself.…