The story, of course, is just a simplistic retelling of the animated feature film, but the reason I’m including Yellow Submarine in Bill’s Bookshelf is the extras at the end of the book. It had been years since I pulled this book from the shelf, and I had totally forgotten the humorous meta-fictional entries in the back, after the story ends. There is a farcical essay, complete with footnotes, called The Yellow Submarine and the Tradition of Western Literature, supposedly “Reprinted by permission of the International Journal of Comparative Angst.” Among other things, the essay ponders the disagreement among scholars as to the correct translation of the submarines color. “C. H. Whitman refers to the Homeric epithet xanthos, meaning golden, yellow, or perhaps not…W. J. Sloane makes it mauve, with dove-gray trimmings, but this is a fringe viewpoint.” Of course, it’s all nonsensical. There are also instructions for a submerging that include boiling water for tea.
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