Actually, i read on the introduction to Pynchon's "Slow Learner" collection of short stories, that he holds his writing in V. in higher esteem than his work in "the crying...", even though V is a bit earlier. I enjoy them both myself. The paragraph at the beggining when he describes Mucho's suceptibility through how much his work in the used car lot got to him, is priceless, one of my favourite moments in literature.
Maybe you could check out this collection of short stories, I only read "entropy" (being drawn to it by the title i suppose) which is very good.
