Books which became part of your persona

Was just reflecting this morning that I often see the world through the lens of Spike Milligan's war diaries - so many of his hilarious turns of phrase I use mentally as if I'd come up with them myself, and in a weird way I feel like his experiences are part of my life. I read the first when I was about 13 and found a box set of the rest when I was about 16-17, read them multiple times since then, and internalised them thoroughly.
Anyone else have a book (or movie, poetry, whatever) which became a personal code of sorts?

I think I owe much of my personality to the combined influence of the Odyssey, Gaudy Night, and the third and fourth volumes of Orwell's collected essays and letters.

I thought about including Kipling in the list, but even though I encountered him quite early, he always seemed less like a formative influence and more like something that just happened to match up with what was already in me.

Probably the book that made the strongest impression on me at a young age was Dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delany. I read it for the first time at age 13. Not sure if it became a part of my persona--I'll let my shrink evaluate that--but it does occupy a singular presence in my consciousness.

reading all that PG Wodehouse aged about 11 did for me, probably

Does Mad magazine count?

A Single Man - Christopher Isherwood

Was just this morning thinking about the fact that so many books I love are about dudes on doomed, obsessive quests: Moby-Dick, Heart of Darkness, Blood Meridian, Jim Harrison's A Good Day to Die...

I read Walden at age 15 and I immediately went all-in on the idea of keeping my life as simple as possible. I've long since forgotten most of the book, do not idolize Thoreau or even own his books, but the core idea that wealth is a bother, 'enough is as good as a feast', and what gives value to life is how one thinks and acts, not what one owns, has been welded into me ever since.

Slightly embarrassing to admit, but On the Road came to me at the right time (16-17?) and not only gave me an entrance into a non-hippie American post-war bohemianism but also helped me to appreciate America a little, even the sad & hopeless parts

I don't consider it great literature or in my top ten or anything like that, but it made an impression during a formative time that I probably still carry with me

Does Mad magazine count?

hell, yes!

Don Martin did more to influence my sense of humor than anyone else I can think of.

https://www.madmagazine.com/sites/default/files/imce/2015/01-JAN/Don-Martin_In-the-Deli_54b5836a1b4610.47485086.jpg

The Doonesbury Chronicles & Greatest Hits.

so many books I love are about dudes on doomed, obsessive quests

The two writers I've set out to be the World's Expert on - Kipling and Springsteen - are both dudes who come up immediately in the search results when you google "poet of work," though I myself am quite lazy and have spent most of my adult life working part-time jobs.

I like things about people sticking to their work and enduring through the strain and darkness of life. That might be the Kipling influence.

I like things that feel like darkness or confusion with beams of light arcing through it, or like murky water with bright things flashing to the surface and then disappearing. I think that was already there when I encountered Kipling, and a big reason why I liked him, and later liked things like Exile on Main Street.

I also like things that have the emotional clarity of the classic children's books I read as a kid - books like The Good Master, The Railway Children, The Lantern Bearers. I'm thinking of Murakami movies, or A Month in the Country, or certain moments in the Odyssey. Like when Odysseus, drifting in the sea, exhausted and close to drowning, finally sees land, and the poet compares it to the relief felt by children when their father recovers from an illness.

I like arguments that are so logical and so perfectly phrased that you can almost hear the snap as the final piece locks into place. I think that's the Orwell influence.

I also think reading Karel Capek at age fifteen, all that homely, homey, funny/sad, utterly unpretentious Czech philosophy, got to me in a big way. Probably part of why I ended up liking John Prine so much.

Wait no I was nineteen when I read most of Capek, though I first encountered him around age 12 in the form of War With the Newts. No idea where I got fifteen from.

Miyazaki not Murakami

Miyazaki not Murakami

Ugh, what is wrong with me today? Sorry everyone!