Likable characters (whom you might not like if you knew them as we, privileged readers, do) : Franzen's Freedom

Next section of Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom" centers on Joe(y) Bergland, now a freshman at UVA, separated from girlfriend Connie and struggling to establish or restore his relationship with his mother, Patty, the central character in the novel. By this point a clear pattern emerges in the novel and in Franzen's overall sense of character and family dynamics: we have see Patty, with her distant parents, struggling her whole life to win approval and recognition, primarily by being "nice" and a great mom, and now we see her son, smothered by Patty's over-involvement, rebelling and separating, spends last two years of h.s. living (next door) with girlfriend, then off to college and pushing Connie away from him as he tries to live "on his own" - and his behavior is totally "not nice." Generations alter between overly likable characters (though you might not like them if you really knew them in the way we, privileged readers, know them) and overly unlikable characters (though you might like them if you really knew them the way we know them). In fact, part of the beauty of Franzen's writing is his sympathy for all of his characters, or at least his willingness to and ability to open them up to us, to let us see the struggles they go through to realize themselves, their conflicts and fears and foibles. His characters are more fully rounded that almost any others of recent fiction, at least since the Rabbit novels (which Franzen's recall, in their exploration of families, across generations, and in particular in their awareness of culture tags and moments in a way that fully recalls the time and place without ever being showoff with brand names and name checks).