On the Road of Excess ; Rose Tremain, Whose Novels Trace the Outsider's Path across Countries and Centuries, Now Follows a Migrant's Progress in a Bloated Britain. She Talks to BOYD TONKIN

Beginning of article

From the highest storey of the Random House headquarters in Pimlico, hackneyed film shots lie at every compass-point. Turn one way and West-minster's turrets loom; another, and the Byzantine wedding-cake of MI6 stands tall. This is London, and Britain, from the top down. Across the boardroom table, Rose Tremain - somehow both funky and soignee in a green blouson jacket - explains why her new outsider-hero endures the same city, and country, from the bottom up. Literally. The migrant Lev's progress through a land of material plenty and emotional dearth starts in a subterranean cole- hole in Earls Court where he kips once off the bus from his Eastern European home. "As a child I …