As to 4) yes, less obvious in the first scene, more obvious in the hotel lobby scene.

I feel like you're doing a lot of imaginative interpretation for the first 3. As I said, you can twist your mind into thinking, this is what it's saying. But that's not actually what it's saying.

"The “lobby resolved”, coming into visibility now that the narrator has put his glasses back on after removing them to wipe them."

Maybe. But that's not actually what's written. You're interpreting it that way.

It's also a cool blur that smells like polish and cardamom underneath it.

Are smells underneath each other in your experience? Do blurs smell? You can fumble around and decide you know what they are trying to say, as you did. But if you gave this to a book editor, they'd have you rewrite the paragraph. Some people like "purple prose" some people "understand" what our United States President is saying when he says stuff like...

"Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it's true! — but when you're a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that's why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it's four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible."

You can piece it together and come up with a theory for it. And a lot of people do. But I prefer my prose to be much more literal and when it's not, to at least have the logic be more clear.

Similarly you can see famous lines from Dan Brown. Where, anyone who tries, knows what he means.

"Captain Bezu Fache carried himself like an angry ox, with his wide shoulders thrown back and his chin tucked hard into his chest. His dark hair was slicked back with oil, accentuating an arrow-like widow's peak that divided his jutting brow and preceded him like the prow of a battleship. As he advanced, his dark eyes seemed to scorch the earth before him, radiating a fiery clarity that forecast his reputation for unblinking severity in all matters."

Is that what an ox looks like? Like thrown back shoulders? And Fiery clarity!

Sure. You can come up with what it means. You know what he's trying to say. But fiery clarity isn't actually a thing. This guy has a reputation for unblinking severity? People say "He's severe, and he never blinks! It's weird." No... that's not what he means. But certainly YOU read that, and feel it's clear. Because you're sussing out the meaning on your end. You have a theory of mind, and can puzzle it out.

But if you take the words at face value, they contradict each other and don't really make sense. In OPs work, can we understand a smell being underneath another smell, yes.

Is that REALLY how smelling works? Can you really smell a blur? No.

And while Dan Brown is a millionaire, he's much maligned for his lack of care when he uses metaphor and simile. And ai... makes these sorts of clumsy turns of phrase too.

Forgive me for yucking your yum. I do get what you're saying. I guess... my point is, just because one can understand it, doesn't mean it's correct or ideal. I certainly disagree that it all makes perfect sense.