I just realised that for me the whole café situation with wine, cigarettes and chess was meant to show a mundane and ordinary context, inspired by the workmen's café in Moderato Cantabile. Ironic that the author sees it as the opposite. Even Chauvin wouldn't have.
I don't think it's too difficult to comprehend how he approached this but then, I am American. I think it's a cultural thing. There is a strong streak of anti-intellectualism in the US. That and an association with Europe and sophistication.
I have noticed this before. There is a school of thought that equates art with some sort of puzzle design. Basically they see art as a complicated way to say something simple. And art appreciation is then solving the puzzle, ie finding that simple message that the author for some reason didn't want to just share up front.
This is the fault of modernist and post-modernist art. 20th century art has fucked us all.