When I was Seventeen,

I discovered Pope (Alexander), Milton, Bertrand Russell, and Ayn Rand, whose villains (James Taggart and Lillian [Mrs. Hank] Rearden)  and whose contempt for the ethos of collectivism, I found, variously, delicious and thrilling. It did not make me want to bomb churches with little negro girls in them, but it gave an edge to my appreciation of Hogarth. And the Russellian part of my self-indoctrination made it forever in my life impossible for me to  enjoy bad writing (Hemingway, J.K. Rowling) or sloppy thinking; but rendered me susceptible, in the fulness of time, to the wicked, charming insights of Jean Baudrillard.

But the most formative literary influence on  me? Probably Hermann Hesse, with his Mozart-worship and Ludi mit Glassperlen and Journey to the East. Hook, line and sinker.  When the Master said to me, "You've got something wrong here," that's what it was: Mozart-worship.