The book opens with the only instance I recall in Lewis’ works where he inserts himself into one of his own stories (reminiscent of his theological argument comparing the Incarnation to Shakespeare writing himself into a play.

I was still just getting to know Lewis at the time, and I little imagined what I was letting myself in for. My preference is to read series in order, but this was the only one they had in the little church library from which I borrowed it. Perelandra was the first book of Lewis’ science fiction trilogy that I read, long ago. I’ve read it several times before – once aloud, in fact – but though the plot is familiar, the experience is always a surprise. As the taste of the fruit in the passage above surpassed the narrator’s powers of description, I have a hard time expressing the effect this wonderful book had on me. I told you yesterday that I was reading C. For one draft of this on Earth wars would be fought and nations betrayed. It was like the discovery of a totally new genus of pleasures, something unheard of among men, out of all reckoning, beyond all covenant. But then it was so different from every other taste that it seemed mere pedantry to call it a taste at all. It was, of course, a taste, just as thirst and hunger had been thirst and hunger. He had meant to extract the smallest, experimental sip, but the first taste put his caution all to flight. After a moment’s hesitation he put the little aperture to his lips. Then by accident one of his fingers punctured it and went through into coldness. The rind was smooth and firm and seemed impossible to tear open. He picked one of and turned it over and over.

Perelandra review