Customer Reviews

Timothy Leary: A Biography

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4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Robert Greenfield has created an Epic Novel [masquerading as non-fiction] in his newly-released biography "Timothy Leary" [2006, Harcourt, $28.00].
I will state up front that I am long an admirer of Dr Timothy Leary who, along with The Beatles and Bob Dylan, was one of the most famous/infamous figures of the turbulent 1960's with his call to "change your mind" "Question Authority" and "Turn On Tune In Drop Out."
That said, I purchased a copy of Greenfield's book out of curiosity and with an awareness that the author's tone was less than sympathectic to his subject [advance praise for the book made that clear back in May 06].
Now, 689 pages later, I am compelled to write this review as a caution to others who may not fully know the Leary story from LEARY'S point of view.
Mr Greenfield makes a point of describing Timothy Leary [over and over] as self-centered, self-serving, a liar, a bad parent...there is nothing in Leary's 75 years of life that Mr Greenfield describes without derisive asides and "notes."
Worse, there is a FICTIONIALIZED DRAMATIC NARRATIVE that has been used to serve as a book-end to this dreary bio [Leary, in bed as a child, awaiting his father's arrival home for the inevitalbe beating his father would administer to Leary, in bed as a dying man, awaiting his 'punishment' from...?]

Most hard to take is the inference that Leary's masterpiece "Flashbacks" [1983 autobiography] was loaded with inaccuracies and lies. One such "lie" refers to Leary claiming to have slept with actress Marilyn Monroe.
I have copies of every edition of "Flashbacks" and none makes such a claim.
Also galling is the assertion that actor Cary Grant was "more candid than Leary ever was" in accounts of his [Grant's] LSD experiences back in 1958. What was Leary doing from 1963 [dismissal from Harvard] to 1970 [imprisonment]if not advocating the benefits of further drug research? The call for government to responsibly research and license psychedelic drugs was Leary's mantra for those 7 or so heady years.

This book is ambitious but falls short of hitting the mark, assuming said mark was to cover the story of leary's life thoroughly, accurately.
Greenfield has filled these 689 pages with much of what Leary had already written in numerous volumes during his lifetime-and, ultimately, this book calls to mind another biographer, Albert Goldman, who also took a jaundiced view point of his deceased] subjects.
To sum up: Save your money and buy a copy of "Flashbacks."

Bill Picha
Salem Oregon

This book was hard to put down.

I have always admired Timothy Leary and after reading this biography, I admire the man even more.

Okay ... he was selfish. He was a liar. He was a lot of things that many or all of us are. He was human.

Greenfield ends his volume by stating that "the man who advocated change but could never change himself" had died.

I take issue with his conclusion. Whether Leary "changed" or "grew" is something only Leary knew for sure. Even all of Leary's friends and "friends" couldn't judge that, even if they did get to share Leary's life with him.

Leary was an important man in modern history. He had the courage to point to very important things for people to know. Of course, more superficial people get hung up on the guy doing the pointing instead of what the guy is pointing to.

I never considered Leary to be anything other than a wounded, weak human, so I wasn't disappointed by what I read in this book.

If anything, it made me feel as though he really was a friend of mine, struggling with many of the same challenges that make life the riddle it often can be.

Unlike Greenfield and those who were interviewed for this book, I'm compelled not to make any value judgments on the man who was Timothy Leary.

I prefer to simply love him and be thankful that he helped point me toward reprogramming my own brain and questioning authority.

Four hundred and seventy pages into Robert Greenfield's flawed but poignant biography, Timothy Leary's frivolous and confused Austrian girlfriend, Joanna, gives Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti a ride to see Leary in Folsom prison. After being made to wait an unusually long time, Leary is led into a special visitors cage. Greenfield quotes Joanna, "... Tim came into the cage and his head was shaved and he had blood all over his skull. Very very frightening. He said they had yanked him out of his cell in the early morning and insisted on shaving his head. They shaved it in an extremely clumsy way and he got cut. It was only later that I realized they did it on purpose. They wanted him to look awful in front of his visitors. To show their supremacy over Tim to Ginsberg." So what happens amongst our conspirators when they see Dr. Leary in this condition? They start squabbling with each other, Leary included!

This could be the point where Robert Greenfield might have taken this already multi-dimensional hopscotch distress story and elevated it into a tale for the ages: -- psychedelic Kafka, with enough vintage seventies Orwellian psychodrama to stock several upcoming Pink Floyd albums and X Files spin offs spanning some 35 years of ever-intensifying, government-induced paranoia.

Hey, it's not the story Timothy Leary wanted to tell us, at least not directly, but if the goal is to suck this story dry and reveal it as pitiable for all to see, it seems an enormous failing on Greenfield's part not to take this as a point of departure.

And what sort of departure might this all be leading up to? Escape by starship, apparently, and here again Robert Greenfield misses the absurd complex Science Fictional dimensions of the story. Cue "The Man Who Fell To Earth." Because the fact is that a lot of that stuff that Leary started yakking about after refusing a lifetime sentence in the "Witness Protection" program checks out. Just look at that buzzing wired global neuro-electric circuit that will be used to sell most of the copies of Robert Greenfield's book. Who could have predicted that? Bernadine Dohrn?

Or looking a little more "far out!"... and you may take any view you like in current debates around transhumanism, singularities, evolutionary psychology, and possibilities for actual mutation and evolution in our species; I change my mind all the time about it myself. But the arc of Greenfield's story would have benefited immensely if he'd known anything at all about any of this; if he'd had a clue about Leary's project, which - as fate would have it - finally came into sharp focus during the very same time that his political dignity was being robbed (but not robbed blind).

OK. Now that I've (sort of) defended my guy in the big primate passion wars, I've got to say... Robert Greenfield is still one hell of a good writer: this is sill perhaps the most poignant and resonant adventure tragicomic tale of the 20th Century, particularly if you were planning to enjoy a particularly pungent and decadent aperitif after your apocalypse. What is most pathetic of all is the fact that the American book buying public is probably more interested in another dusty tome on the American Civil War or the scandalous behaviors of Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie (And don't get me wrong. Timmy would have found them both adorable. Why not?)

It was with great anticipation that I approached this new biography of Dr. Timothy Leary whose own book, "Info-Psychology", inspired a book I wrote called "Angel Tech" (New Falcon, 1987) based on Leary's 8-Circuit Brain model (one of his many valuable contributions to society). Though this biography seems to get all the details right about Tim Leary the man (warts and all), his failed relationships and struggles with the law, I was dismayed and disappointed by the lack of mention and extrapolation of his many actual intellectual and psychological accomplishments. So much dirt , so little gold. If you're looking for the gossip that makes us all fallible and ethically questionable in the eyes of others, this book is for you. If you're looking for, as I was, any kind of depth and investigation around Leary's research into intelligence increase you will probably be, as I was, let down. A hefty tome for Leary-haters. -- Antero Alli

700 pages of poorly edited interviews that focus primarily on the negative aspects of Leary's life.

I've read many different interviews with Alan Watts, Huston Smith, Alduous Huxley, Ram Das, Ralph Metzner, Robert Thurman and Wynona Ryder about Timothy Leary. They had wonderful engaging stories to tell. The author blatantly left those out to paint Leary into something less then what he was.

Greenfield's book suffers from the same disorder as most biographies: the author felt the need to find "A" narrative, "A" plumbline that runs through the life of Timothy Leary. In this case, he traces the psychedelic gurus propensity towards being a cad back to his earliest years. Indeed, the author does reveal the opportunistic side of his subject: Leary finked on lawyers and friends who had helped him in order to get a lighter sentence from authorities. This should sober those who treat the psychedelic guru as the ultimate anti-authoritarian.

But surely Leary is more than the monodimensional character that Greenfield depicts. Terence McKenna once said that Timothy Leary made more people happy than anyone else. That may be hyperbole, but Greenfield does not consider the positive opinion many had of Leary. He neither disputes nor affirms such claims. This is a major flaw in this "Life" which does include many fascinating tidbits. As an antidote to this one-sidedness, one should read Robert Forte's "On the Outside Looking In" which is a collection of perspectives on Leary.

This new biography of Leary presents him as a complex character full of flaws and tragic heroism. In particular, Leary's tragic personal life stands in stark contrast here to his larger-than-life counterculture heroics. Whether you love him or hate him, you will have to admit that his life makes for an amazing story. Greenfield tells that story in fluid prose, weaving together disparate first-hand accounts into a detailed chronological portrait. If the book has a flaw, it is that Greenfield perhaps loses his own voice at times, relying too much on quotes from others to tell the story. But, the flip side of that is that he does not let his own agenda interfere with telling the story. Another minor criticism is that he could have helped the reader out at places by providing more date references to keep the chronology clear -- there were times I had to go back several pages to remind myself what year was being discussed. But, at the end of this remarkable book, those flaws are minor indeed. If you have any interest at all in Leary or the '60s counterculture, this book comes highly recommended. Since reading it, I have found myself constantly thinking about Leary and processing the meaning of his life and times. That is what good books are all about.

Leary was a complex man. After having read several books by and about him, I am still not sure I understand his character and motivations. This book fills in a few details about his personal sphere- what he did with whom when, based on interviews with Leary associates, public records, and Leary's own writings. Unfortunately the book is tainted by a personal animus that Greenfield obviously has for Leary, which emerges unexpectedly at times in nasty judgemental comments in the text, but is evident more broadly in the fact that the book is focused on crime, drama, name dropping, and sex, while ignoring any serious consideration of Leary as a public intellectual, a man who articulated a number of novel and interesting ideas, from his pre-psychedelic days as a psychologist to his last days as an advocate of conscious dying. Leary's ideas are treated implicitly and often explicitly by Greenfield as the theater of a fraudulent showman who would say and do anything to get attention. While this may be Greenfield's opinion, it does not make for an edifying and thoughtful biography. The refusal to take Leary seriously is most glaringly evident in the lack of attention to the psychedelic experience itself. Greenfield largely ignores Leary's reactions and words about this experience, and does not bother to provide his own orientation to it for the reader. The psychedelic experience is key to understanding Leary and his times. A biography of Leary without consideration of the nature of the psychedelic experience is like a biography of Jimi Hendrix without consideration of his music, or a biography of Albert Einstein without consideration of his scientific theories - it misses the point. By treating psilocybin and LSD as inherently no different than alcohol and cocaine, Greenfield trivializes Leary's life and work.
Psychedelic substances have been used in human cultures since prehistoric times for sacred and shamanic purposes. Our society suppresses these substances and persecutes those who use them, which is interesting, since they are not addictive, are not harmful to psychologically healthy adults, and such persecution has tremendous costs in terms of wasted lives and resources. Leary's life is an interesting lens with which to consider how and why our society has taken this course. Some think Leary hastened this persecution with his relentless and reckless self promotion and sensationalism, something that is well evidenced in this book. Others feel that despite these failings, Leary was nonetheless a sincere explorer trying to make sense of a remarkable new discovery, who tried to interpret and promote this discovery to the public- a psychedelic Carl Sagan, if you will. Unfortunately, this book does not help us understand the man or his times. It seems geared mainly to cash in on the sordid details of Leary's personal life. A pity. Perhaps we are still too close to consider Leary objectively- and like many an iconoclast, he will best be understood after several decades have elapsed, and his ideas are no longer so threatening to the status quo.

Reading this book one wonders two things.
What did Timothy Leary do to Robert Greenfield, and why write a biography about someone you despise.
Every page Greenfield makes a dig, a put down a snide comment.
In Greenfield's opinion Leary is a disaster and a figure of scorn.
Sure there's lots of stories in the book but there is no sense of fun.
I have read both Flashbacks and I have America Surrounded, and the Leary story there is an adventure albeit one that went sour in the end. Above all one gets the impression that Leary might have been a blast to be around.
For a Rolling Stone writer Greenfield comes accross as an arch straight.
Not a recommended read.

Greenfield's biography of counterculture icon Timothy Leary is a tale of both a man and of the history of psychedelic drugs in science, academia, and, of course, American counterculture. Greenfield draws on Leary's own words, published works, police and court documents, and the accounts of his friends, family and peers to paint a vivid picture of this fascinating man. The author is unafraid of contradicting the published memoirs of Leary and his peers (always with solid evidence, of course).

This is a dense biography, filled with captivating anecdotes. I'm a member of the generation after Leary's, and I thoroughly enjoyed my immersion in the life and times of psychedelic drugs. Greenfield has succeeded in writing a book for both the armchair historian and the academic researcher. It concludes with a full 50 pages of endnotes and is complimented by a 30-page index.