gore vidal article

[mdsheppard at mindspring.com]

Paul Mackin mentioned the article (NYRB 1976) in which Gore Vidal critiques a laundry list of "postmodernist" writers.  Can anyone provide me with the crux of Vidal's beef with this set of writers (Pynchon, Barth, Barthelme, etc)?  The author of the David Foster Wallace review in a recent NYRB makes reference to this article as well, noting that Vidal refers to the above camp as "R&D" fiction.  
If anyone can enlighten me on this I'd appreciate it.  I'd be interested in hearing what pynchon list prople think of the connection (to me spurious) that is made between this set of authors.  It seems to me that the ethos of Barth and Pynchon, for example, couldn't be more different....
I'm new to this list BTW...I look forward to reading any comments.

Matt Sheppard