Deeply flawed but thoroughly credible characters - Franzen, and Tolstoy

Discussing the end of Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom" (spoilers, obviously): It is of course a surprise that Patty and Walter do get together, but then once they reconcile it feels like an inevitability. Through the course of this fine novel, we sometimes hate them - Walter in particular becomes more of a crank throughout the book - and often feel sorry for them and generally, love em or hate em, we understand them, a great tribute to Franzen's writing and thinking. How many other contemporary books really do explore character so thoroughly, really unfolding the way they think and react and feel, and exploring their family history, their background, their whole lives really? By the end, it's good they got back together - why should both continue to suffer? Franzen's a strange talent - the knock on him is that none of his characters is likable, but that's not so, his characters in Freedom are deeply flawed but thoroughly credible. Franzen's obvious model is Tolstoy, War and Peace especially, and he even references it occasionally in Freedom, and the last chapters feel especially Tolstoyan, as we see the characters in a kind of coda, about six years after the key events in the novel conclude, and they're much more mature and serene and willing to come together and reconcile their hurts and differences. Patty - we see it at the end - was always destined for the upright Walter, and Walter will try, in his way, to do good and to get along in the world. All the turbulence and hatred is behind him at the end. Should there have been a scene of true confrontation between Patty and her horrible mother? Yes, probably, Franzen lets her mom off too easily, but the scene in which Patty asks her mother why she never came to her b-ball games is probably more true to life than a blowout confrontation would have been. All told, a really strong novel, beautifully written and conceived, worth the wait.